The problem with Great Commencement Speeches

I am a huge fan of commencement speeches. I have a whole youtube file full of them, Steve Jobs, the Hamilton Musical guy, the Amazon founder, JK Rowlings I have watched them all.

As much as I enjoy these speeches, it doesn’t take too long to find the pattern. The one theme all those geniuses have built on; Follow your passion; do what you are passionate about., never give up on what you really care about.

It’s awesome to listen to George Lucas tell me that I should work hard, and develop grit and overcome whatever gets in my way. But…

As much as I enjoy that theme it seems to miss the mark for most of the grads I know. It’s not the courage to follow their passion that is missing it’s the passion itself.

Unlike all those cool genius types not all of us are born knowing what we how we want to save the world. And sadly having a huge variety of ways in which the world needs to be saved does not make that issue easier.

So, when Harvard calls me next year, to give the commencement address I will have a plan.

I will start with two helpful hints to finding a passion:

Your passion is NOT going to come to you through a screen. Go try stuff out.
Look for stuff you like even when you fail, then
I would end with “follow your passion” so I can be grouped with all those geniuses.